M. Lopez

En este artículo se analiza el debate sobre la forma adecuada de entender el condicional producido en el siglo IV a. C. El análisis se lleva a cabo mediante el método proporcionado por Rudolf Carnap para estudiar el significado de las expresiones, es decir, mediante el método de extensión e intensión. Los resultados de ese análisis parecen mostrar que, aunque, según Sexto Empirico, el debate fue sobre cuatro criterios diferentes para comprender el condicional, en realidad tres de esos criterios parecen ser iguales y tienen una forma lógica común muy clara en el marco de Carnap.

It is usually said that there is a clear difference between pre-philosophical texts such as Homer’s Iliad and what is provided in the fragments corresponding to first philosophers such as Thales of Miletus. This paper tries to show that this is not undoubtedly so, and it does that by means of the analysis of a fragment of the Iliad in which Hypnos is speaking. In this way, the main argument is that, while the fragment can be interpreted both in a literal and in a metaphorical or poetic sense, in both of those cases it can be thought that it is related to philosophy or rational thinking. If the interpretation is literal, the fragment expresses an idea very akin to an important thesis by Thales of Miletus. On the other hand, if the interpretation is metaphorical or poetic, we have to assume, following several contemporary reasoning theories, that the fragment is essentially based on an evident rational inference.

El papa Francisco, por primera vez, extiende la jerarquía de verdades al ámbito propiamente moral de la Iglesia católica. Pero ciertamente también a semejante afirmación cabe introducirle un matiz, porque, de hecho, ya con anterioridad, el Magisterio había señalado una gradación de verdades, aunque lo había hecho en relación a la autoridad de la Iglesia y a la infalibilidad del Papa, tanto en formulaciones de fe como de costumbres. A este respecto son de interés tanto la «Professio fidei» y el «Juramento de fidelidad» publicados en 1989 por la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe, como la «Instrucción Donum veritatis sobre la vocación eclesial del teólogo» también de la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe en 1990, como por último la «Carta apostólica en forma de “Motu proprio” Ad tuendam fidem» firmada por Juan Pablo II en 1998, y que pretende adecuar el Código de derecho canónico y el de cánones de las Iglesias orientales a la «Professio fidei» anteriormente mencionada. No vamos a entrar en un diálogo polémico sobre tales textos ni en los problemas surgidos de su interpretación1, sino simplemente señalar lo que suponen para la cuestión de la jerarquía de verdades en la teología moral católica.

The Stoics not only analyzed sentences showing to be clear conditionals. They also reviewed other kinds of sentences related to the conditional that are not exactly conditionals, for example, the pseudo-conditionals and the causal assertibles. In this paper, I try to argue that the Stoic account of such sentences reveals that certain problematic issues that contemporary cognitive science is concerned with, such as the ways the conditionals can be expressed or the pragmatic phenomenon of the conditional perfection, were already studied by the Stoics, and that they even gave their solutions to those problems. To do that, I resort to the semantic analysis of models usually made by the mental models theory, and use it as a methodological tool.

_Abstract_ The mental models theory claims that human thought is mainly semantic and consists of analyses of the possibilities that the sentences refer to. The theory has a great empirical support. However, it can be thought that, if it actually shows how the human mind works, it should be possible to find ancient texts authored by philosophers or logicians whose arguments reveal identifications and comparison of semantic possibilities. In this paper, I try to argue that, indeed, texts of that kind are to be found in the ancient sources. In particular, I comment on a fragment written by Aulus Gellius in which an analysis of possibilities is clear. _Keywords:_ ancient philosophy, mental models, possibilities, reasoning, semantics.

Este artículo explica el papel desempeñado por las desigualdades horizontales en el norte de Uganda, en la guerra que condujo a Museveni al poder en 1986 y en la guerra de veinte años que éste libró contra el Ejército de Resistencia del Señor. La investigación presenta la definición de la enemistad política con base en el clivaje norte sur, entre nilóticos y bantúes, como el mecanismo explicativo que conecta las desigualdades horizontales con la dinámica de la guerra civil y con el carácter violento del postconflicto ugandés, en un escenario marcado por el autoritarismo y el capitalismo de amiguetes.

El primero de los recientes Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible de la agenda de Naciones Unidas para el 2030 pretende acabar totalmente con el hambre para dicha fecha. Ahora bien, esta iniciativa debería ir acompañada de la garantía jurídica de incluir un derecho a la alimentación, con más fuerza y efectividad. Además, ello va ser una necesidad por la amenaza que el cambio climático supone para la seguridad alimentaria mundial a medio plazo. Asimismo, también es necesario atender a la relación del derecho a la alimentación con el comercio, particularmente en las negociaciones en curso en el seno de la Organización Mundial del Comercio.

The current formal theories trying to account for reasoning and language often need to resort to the thesis of the pragmatic or implicit premises to explain the real role pragmatics plays in the human inferential activity. The main aim of this paper is to show that, although they did not propose theories in this way, the Stoics, by means of their concept of ‘sign’, already offered the essential arguments and foundations necessary to describe the real action of both pragmatics and the premises coming from general knowledge when we make inferences.

The theories accounting for cognition based on formal schemata often claim that there is a logic in the human mind. From the thesis on the river given by Heraclitus of Ephesus, in this paper, it is argued that, if that logic exists, it cannot be simple, and that, at a minimum, it requires the assumption of some kind of temporal elements, which, in general, seem not to be considered in such theories. In particular, some reflections about possible ways those elements could be taken into account are presented.

En este trabajo se presenta una explicación para el problema de las versiones abstractas de la tarea de selección de las cuatro tarjetas de Peter Wason: los discretos resultados de los participantes cuando se enfrentan a ellas. Nuestra explicación apunta a que los sujetos no comprenden la regla de la tarea como un condicional, sino como un bicondicional, provocando tal circunstancia que no elijan las tarjetas correctas. Santamaría planteó una objeción para todo enfoque que defienda que en la tarea de selección se produce una interpretación bicondicional de la regla, pero nosotros también respondemos aquí a dicha objeción atendiendo a la primacía que en el razonamiento humano puede tener la regla lógica del modus ponens. Igualmente, exponemos un estudio, basado en diálogos de seminario tutoriales al modo socrático, realizado por nosotros con el propósito de comprobar si nuestra explicación puede ser viable y comentamos los resultados obtenidos. In this paper, we present an explanation for the problem of the abstract versions of Peter Wason’s four-card selection task: modest subjects’ results when they are confronted with these tasks. Our explanation poses that individuals do not comprehend the task rule as a conditional sentence, but as a biconditional one, causing that subjects do not choose the correct cards. Santamaría presented an objection for any approach that suggests a biconditional interpretation in the task selection. In this work, we discuss this objection based on the apparent primacy of a logical rule in human reasoning: modus ponens. Additionally, we present a study based on Socratic dialogue seminars with a tutorial style, developed by us, to check whether our explanation is viable or not, and discuss the results achieved.

En este artículo llevamos a cabo una extensa revisión de la literatura científica en lo relativo a los vínculos entre materialismo y felicidad, desde un enfoque multidisciplinar que incluye la psicología, la comunicación, la economía y la ética. La línea dominante en la bibliografía insiste en vincular un mayor materialismo con una menor auto-percepción de felicidad y de bienestar, y con una mayor propensión a la depresión. En esta revisión atendemos a los aspectos que así lo evidencian, al rumbo actual de las investigaciones y a los retos aún pendientes de clarificación por parte de la comunidad investigadora.

Management cybernetics has been in development since the 1960s, although its implementation has been relatively modest. Two of the best-known proposals are Beer’s Viable System Model and Steinbruner’s Cybernetic Theory of Decision. Both are homeostatic systems, inspired by living organisms. Professor Juan A. Pérez López (1934–1996) argued that homeostatic systems are not fully appropriated for human beings, and proposed instead the “Freely Adaptive System” (FAS) model to explain the dynamics of an organization formed by two dynamic human systems. This model, although it is within the management cybernetic paradigm, and does not propose any anthropological philosophy, is consistent with several features of the Aristotelian anthropological tradition, including epistemology, practical reason, and virtues. The FAS model can help as a compass for decision making by considering three basic criteria—effectiveness, internal efficiency and consistency—when two persons—an active agent and a reactive agent—interact repeatedly. The model sheds light on the interdependence of ethics and efficiency in successive interactions.

Cicero attributes an inference schema that is not logically valid to Stoic logic. This fact has been deemed as a Cicero’s mistake. However, in this paper, I assume the thesis that Cicero was not actually wrong and that, by means of his schema, he could be showing us interesting aspects of Stoicism that are not clear in the ancient sources. In this way, I use the mental models theory as a methodological tool and argue that the case of Cicero’s mistake allows us to suppose that there were six indemonstrables in Stoic logic, and not five.

The principle of explosion is a problem for the syntactic theories trying to explain and describe human reasoning. In fact, most of the formal cognitive theories tend to reject it. However, that rejection is not often based on a theoretical development of the theories, but on inductions from experimental data. In this paper, I expose Woods and Irvine’s arguments in order to show that Aristotelian logic does not have this problem, that its theoretical framework does not enable to accept the principle of explosion, and that this logic hence has, at least in a sense, certain advantages compared to the current reasoning syntactic theories.